Cheerful Abundance

a field notebook of suburban life

This is our first Fourth of July in our new hometown, and I have to say this: our White Flight Destination Town, as I like to call it, is perhaps the most civilized place on earth, in terms of event planning and party-having. Everyone is friendly, smiling in the way that only people with excellent health insurance and plenty of options in life can, making room for one another at the parade, pointing out smart places from which to watch the (excellent) fireworks, and generally being accommodating and kind.

The Fourth of July parade here is monstrous, utterly disproportionate to the size of the town, and residents put their lawn chairs out along the parade route a few days in advance, to secure comfortable seating and a good view. And then the chairs just … stay there. Nobody takes them, or moves them, or desecrates them. Your chairs just sit and wait for you, so that you can roll up to the parade a minute before it starts and sit down in your reserved chairs. Plus, the night before the parade, companies leave swag on your seat, tie balloons on the backs, drop off fans, for the heat, and leave you a program. So civilized! Or … so lazy. But who cares, really? It was heaven to not have to find a spot. And while we had to walk a few blocks to our chairs because parking was a little more difficult, it was a walk through a residential neighbourhood, one in which every home seemed to feature a riotous and gorgeous garden out front. I kick myself for not photographing it all, because it was basically a stroll through a Pinterest folder likely to be titled, “Garden Porn”.

The kids did well, for their first parade. They started to melt down around float #93, and we left early, missing the wrap-up floats covered in crepe paper and politicians, but they cheered for the ragtime bands, danced to the reggae music, waved at the old people, saluted the Coast Guard, and stood and cheered loudly for Special Olympians. A float of shelter dogs went by, and on it sat a kid inside a pen filled with shelter puppies, which is pretty much my husband’s dream come true, to be covered in puppies like that, and the driver stopped so we could pet them.

So, to recap: saved, assigned seating, complimentary fan, handsome people in uniforms, Special Olympians, and puppies. Pretty much a perfect day. Afterward, we came home and napped, so that we could take the kids to their second ‘first’: fireworks.

Here is where we got stupid. We were so spoiled from our reserved parade seating experience that we waltzed out of the house a scant 20 minutes before these were scheduled to start, assuming we would just roll up to the beach and plop down.

Ha! Instead, it turned out that every road in town that heads to the beach was blocked off, and we ended up standing in a parking lot, a parking lot we had to hike to with two small kids in tow. Two small kids who were already an hour and half past their bed time. Good times! After the (very impressive) fireworks were finished, I asked the kids what they thought, and both told me they hated fireworks. Good to know! Glad we made the effort! You are WELCOME, I said to them.

Not content to just see a parade and some fireworks, we decided to avail ourselves of every town-sponsored 4th of July event this weekend. Dammit, these kids are going to be 4th of July-d to death, if only to make up for the past four 4th of Julys, in which we hid in our home while our neighbours shot guns in the air to ‘celebrate’ the holiday. Which is how we ended up …. going fishing.

Guess who loves fishing? Can you guess? Is that expression of utter thrill and joy giving it away? This girl. This girl loves to fish. But, it turns out, what she loathes is being taught how to fish. Or being told or taught how to do anything, even if it is something she has no idea how to do herself. Nobody tells this little girl what to do. I suspect her career path in life is tracking more ‘cruel dictator‘ and less ‘accountant‘. I am not going to lie: when she made this face, a few adults stepped back a couple of paces and gave us some room. We caught a few catfish and bluegills, threw them all back, and called it a day.

Americans, your holidays exhaust me. And all that red and white frosting I ate is killing me, which I also blame on … other people? The holiday? Obama? Somebody. Somebody ….. else!